Ground beetles are one of the important components of dry desert ecosystems and play a key role in maintaining desert ecosystem structure and functioning. As yet, fewer studies have investigated the effects of abiotic factors on ground beetle community distribution in inland arid desert ecosystems, northwest China. Using the data set obtained on ground beetle communities and abiotic factors (soil texture, surface temperature, subsurface temperature and soil moisture) of three microhabitats (Reaumuria soongorica shrubs, Nitraria sphaerocarpa shrubs and inter-shrub bare ground) in three sampling periods (spring, summer and autumn) in a typical desert shrubland of the middle Heihe River basin, multiple regression analysis, RDA method were used to examine the relationships between beetle community distribution and microhabitat′s abiotic factors. Multiple regression analyses show that the beetle distribution was significantly affected by coarse sand, medium & fine sand, and silt & clay contents of the soil, which accounted for 21% of the variation in beetle abundance. RDA analyses show that the beetle distribution was significantly affected by coarse sand and medium & fine sand contents of the soil, surface and subsurface (10 cm depth) temperatures in spring, which accounted for 34.3% of the variation in beetle abundance. However, coarse sand and medium & fine sand contents of the soil were the most important factors shaping the spatial distribution of beetle community in summer whereas soil coarse sand content and soil moisture content were the main factors influencing the spatial distribution of beetle community in autumn, which accounted for 188% and 17.1% of the variation in beetle abundances, respectively. Furthermore, Pearson correlation analyses show that different beetle populations responded differentially to variations in abiotic factors of the microhabitats investigated. We conclude that abiotic factors of the microhabitats play key roles in determining the distribution patterns of desert beetle communities but their effects on beetle distribution are found to be season specific and species specific.